We're not discussing China and although they may have profited from it, they didn't take part in the invasion. You're telling me the United States
hasn't profited or has never profited from a war before or that they'd just sit on the sidelines if it was China launching an invasion?

Sure the Us "profited" if you call it that considering how much we buy and borrow from them from civilian products to "chips" in military
technology.

There were attempts in another thread to claim that the discovery of a couple of rusty old mustard shells in Iraq somehow justified the entire
wrecking of a country and the deaths of thousands of people. It goes to show the desperate lengths that people will go to in an attempt to justify the
invasion.

As mentioned the things found in Iraq were negligible and in a rather decrepit state.

There is nothing of substance in that article. It's just "some" things were found. What exactly they were we're not told. Nothing of any genuine
military threat or anything that justified the invasion as I previously stated. From the article:

But even late in the war, WMDs were still being unearthed. In the summer of 2008, according to one WikiLeaked report, American troops found at
least 10 rounds that tested positive for chemical agents. “These rounds were most likely left over from the [Saddam]-era regime. Based on location,
these rounds may be an AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] cache. However, the rounds were all total disrepair and did not appear to have been moved for a long
time.”

A small group — mostly of the political right — has long maintained that there was more evidence of a major and modern WMD program than the
American people were led to believe. A few Congressmen and Senators gravitated to the idea, but it was largely dismissed as conspiratorial hooey.

The WMD diehards will likely find some comfort in these newly-WikiLeaked documents. Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were
hardly the kind of grave danger that the Bush administration presented in the run-up to the war.

In a series of raids, the Jordanians said, they seized 20 tons of chemicals and numerous explosives. Also seized were three trucks equipped with
specially modified plows, apparently designed to crash through security barricades.

The first alleged target was the Jordanian intelligence headquarters. The alleged blast was intended to be a big one.

"According to my experience as an explosives expert, the whole of the Intelligence Department will be destroyed, and nothing of it will remain, nor
anything surrounding it," Jayyousi said.

Details of the alleged plot were shown Monday on Jordanian television, including graphics of how the cell apparently intended to carry out the
attack.

Many speculate that the chemical components found in that raid were acquired in Syria. 20 tons of material if used in full capacity could have wiped
out 100,000 people.

and this

The CIA has in its hands the critical parts of a key piece of Iraqi nuclear technology -- parts needed to develop a bomb program -- that were dug
up in a back yard in Baghdad, CNN has learned.

The parts, with accompanying plans, were unearthed by Iraqi scientist Mahdi Obeidi who had hidden them under a rose bush in his garden 12 years ago
under orders from Qusay Hussein and Saddam Hussein's then son-in-law, Hussein Kamel.

U.S. officials emphasized this was not evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapon -- but it was evidence the Iraqis concealed plans to reconstitute their
nuclear program as soon as the world was no longer looking

More than a year after the White House, at considerable political cost, accepted the intelligence agencies' verdict that Mr. Hussein destroyed
his stockpiles in the 1990's, these Americans have an unshakable faith that the weapons continue to exist.

Somebody needs to tell him to let go. It's over.

American intelligence officials hastily scheduled a background briefing for the news media on Thursday to clarify that. Hoekstra and Mr. Santorum
were referring to an Army report that described roughly 500 munitions containing "degraded" mustard or sarin gas, all manufactured before the 1991
gulf war and found scattered through Iraq since 2003. Such shells had previously been reported and do not change the government conclusion, the
officials said.

Yeah well Saddam didn't get the memo and played a dangerous game and he was called on it. Dismiss wikileaks go right ahead WMDS moved to Syria so
where did Assads get his WMDS from? You know the ones that made the news recently.

I didn't dismiss Wikileaks. You didn't post a link to Wikileaks. Your article was from Wired relating to things from Wikileaks.

You just ignored my post completely in fact.

Where did Assad get his WMDs from?

Well...oh I don't know...maybe he developed them in Syria? I don't know.

When the sites identified to him were not searched, he said, he called the 75th Exploitation Task Force every other day, and later the Iraq Survey
Group, pleading with whoever answered to send a team with heavy digging equipment.

He recalled: "They'd say, 'We're in a combat zone. We don't have the people or the equipment.' "

"I didn't imagine it would be a battle to get them to search," he said. "One of the primary reasons for going into combat was the W.M.D."

Or this

Iraqis from backgrounds such as Iraqi Police officers, Doctors, Engineers, Iraqi Govt. officials, farmers, tribesmen, etc. identified sites that
contained WMDs. They explained in detail why WMDs were in these areas and asked the U.S. to remove the WMDs. Much of the WMDs had been buried in
rivers (within concrete bunkers), and in the sewage pipe system. There were signs of chemical activity in the area (missile imprints, gas masks,
decontamination kits, atropine needles, etc..) The Iraqis and my team had no doubt WMDs were hidden in these areas.

The Agents and I knew we had found what we had been looking for. We immediately wrote our reports, which included all the source names, their
credibility, their contact information, grid coordinates of the sites, and photographs. The reports were then sent to the U.S. Weapons Inspectors (in
northern Iraq). This was mid April 2003. We were initially told by the Inspectors that their team was not organized at this point to conduct
exploitations of sites. The sites we had identified would require an extensive amount of excavation. The actual ISG was not formed until a couple of
months after the war. Not only did ISG not have the people and proper equipment, they advised Iraq was still a combat zone and very dangerous. ISG
members further told us that WMD searches were being concentrated in northern Iraq, and not southern Iraq.

This was the first and largest mistake by ISG. During my intelligence gathering the Iraqis had told us that Saddam concentrated on hiding the WMDs in
the southern region because the history of prior UN Weapons Inspections had always concentrated in searches of northern faculties. Searches in
southern Iraq had primarily been helicopter flyovers. I have respect for every U.S. member of ISG who served in Iraq, but as an organization, the
management was poor. They were not organized nor prepared for this type operation. I compare them to FEMA during Hurricane Katrina. Good people,
but poor management. Poor management results in disaster and failure.

We had the evidence, failed to act quickly and many say that's why Bush never pushed the issue of the existence of the WMD.

Is there a possibly that some of the sites you identified three years ago may have been exploited by others (not the U.S.)? Could the government
be covering this up because it may be embarrassing that we let the WMDs slip out of our fingers when we had a chance to obtain them?

It is certainly a feasible option knowing all that we know now regarding Syria..

We had the evidence, failed to act quickly and many say that's why Bush never pushed the issue of the existence of the WMD.

You have a point. But it may also be that WMDs were not the real prime motive in attacking Iraq and at this stage the issue had become irrelevant.

It seems they considered it a waste of resources to thoroughly and adequately search those sites, especially the one mentioned. They should have done
to see properly what was there and whether it was serious equipment of an operational nature or just old stuff as before.

No. Let me ask you directly. Are you in favour of military action against Syria to recover alleged weapons of mass destruction?

They did try and all people can do is sit around, and call them "liars",.

They tried? When? Where? Apparently according to those articles you linked there were transports moving across into Syria. Why weren't they
stopped?

"Merest suspicion" eh gee the fact that he gassed his own people, and his hatred for the west had nothing to do with anything what so ever. Given
the fact that terrorist groups have tried, and still to this day to get WMDS, and use them some people are willing to say "meh so what they won't do
nothing".

By "merest suspicion" I was referring to countries generally and not specifically Iraq. Yes and as we've already established he gassed his own
people with the connivance and in some cases assistance of our benign Western governments. We're not talking about terrorists here, we're talking
alleged Iraqi WMDs and the invasion of Iraq.

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